Clyde Huffman oral history transcript

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INTERVIEW WITH CLYDE HUFFMAN BORN 1900
BY ROBERT PERSONIUS
CONDUCTED JULY 11, 1974
COUNTY HOME IN JUNEAU, ALASKA
MR. HUFFMAN: My name is Clyde Huffman. I was born in 1900.
MR. PERSONIUS: You’re 74 years old. If you were born then, it’s easy to figure out
how old you are!
MR. HUFFMAN: That’s right! After the 4th of August.
MR. PERSONIUS: Are you going to live into the next century?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, I don’t think so! I have a good background of age limits though.
My father was 72 in April and he lived until September. My grandfather lived until the
day before his 94th birthday.
MR. PERSONIUS: You can’t beat that!
MR. HUFFMAN: I should say not!
MR. PERSONIUS: What I’d like to do today is to start…well, let’s start with where
you were born.
MR. HUFFMAN: I was born in Gilman, Illinois. That’s about 81 miles south of
Chicago.
MR. PERSONIUS: You lived there with father and mother?
MR. HUFFMAN: My folks lived there at the time that I was born. We later moved
away from there. We moved to Wisconsin in 1910. We realized, I don’t know how much
you know about it, but in those days everything was shipped by railroad cars. Our
furniture was loaded on and shipped up here. After it got here George Preachly and his
family lived across the railroad tracks on the east side. They helped Dad unload at
Chester from the sidetrack. That was the same place where we unloaded coal. It was the
first coal that was shipped up there.
MR. PERSONIUS: Chester is now what they call East LaFonte. There’s no siding there
now is there?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many buildings were there when you pulled in?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was a sort of a freight warehouse for large things across the
tracks on the east side. There was an incline approach because it was up at Tar Heights.
There was the depot that has passenger entries and also the office and telegraph and so
forth. On the south end was just the normal freight unloading and storage place.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many houses were there in Chester, or East La Fonte at that
time?
MR. HUFFMAN: There were four at that time.
MR. PERSONIUS: Were there any stores?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where was the depot in relation to the present road?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was just to the right or, the south. The siding was actually on the
east side of the present railroad tracks.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the depot and the warehouses were also on the east side?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the depot was on the west side. They were across from each
other.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
MR. HUFFMAN: Just one sister.
MR. PERSONIUS: So, the four of you; father, mother, sister and yourself moved in
1910 to where?
MR. HUFFMAN: To Chester, to the present house that’s right on the corner. It’s now
Maaco’s but it’s been remodeled. But that’s the same house. It be on the south side of
the road right where it turns to go across the tracks.
MR. PERSONIUS: How long did you live there?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t remember exactly, but it was about a year. Then we moved to
Burnett. We were right in the village. In the spring of 1913 we moved to a house in the
“y” between the St. Paul that came from Horicon and the Northwestern that was
crossing. We lived in that “y”, in a little farmhouse. Then we moved to Horicon. We
lived out at what they called Tanner’s Addition.
MR. PERSONIUS: When did you live on Stoney Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: All of 1917.
MR. PERSONIUS: That was after the ditch was all done.
MR. HUFFMAN: Yes, that part of it was done.
MR. PERSONIUS: How long did you live there?
MR. HUFFMAN: For about a year. That was my 11th and 12th grade. I graduated from
LaFonte High School.
MR. PERSONIUS: And you lived there all the rest of your life?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: I wanted to ask you about the construction of the main ditch. Can
you tell me about that?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, when my Dad got up here, and like I told you, he came here
ahead of us; my mother, sister and I. The dredge had dug about half a mile or so. It was
rather slow digging. I don’t know as you know about it, but the dredge’s hull was built in
a spring hole in the back of Denny Conner’s’ farm. The machinery was hauled out from
Oak Center and put on. While they were starting to float the hull, they were starting to
put the machinery on.
MR. PERSONIUS: And the machinery was delivered from Oak Center from the railroad?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: So they’d bring out there by horse and wagon from Oak Center?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. I don’t know about the actual hauling because that was too
early, but that’s what I knew about it. It was built out there at the back of Denny
Conner’s farm at the south end of the marsh. You went in back of Benson’s to the south
through Benson’s farmyard and lot to the spring hole. That spring was the beginning of
the ditch and the marsh. That’s the actual beginning. I don’t know what’s left of it there
now. They used horses and a scraper to make a hole. As the water filled up, it took quite
a while. My Dad said that he was there for a month or so before they got more than a
half a mile as far as the ditch was concerned. They dug the ditch and wait for it to fill in.
The whole marsh was full of springs so part of the water went in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: How big was the wooden barge that they put the dredge on?
MR. HUFFMAN: My recollection is that it was about 18 feet wide and 72 feet long
with the overhang. That overhang was the coalbunker at the back of the barge. I suppose
I don’t really remember but it was four feet or so. That would be about 68 feet long. It
was a wooden hull.
MR. PERSONIUS: What was your father’s job?
MR. HUFFMAN: He was sent there originally sent there to build this dredge. He had
worked in various places in Illinois and all over building dredges up until 1907 I guess,
when we moved. That was kind of a bad time. There wasn’t much dredging. In 1909 we
moved to my grandmother’s farm about 2 miles north of Bowie, Illinois. We lived there
for a year, and then moved back into town. That was my first schooling, at the old Bowie
school and then out to the farm.
MR. PERSONIUS: What was your Dad’s job working on the dredges?
MR. HUFFMAN: He was the engineer you might say, and in the maintenance area. He
was the boss you might say. He worked for R. H. and James Williams in Chicago. That
was the drainage contractor.
MR. PERSONIUS: When did the dredge actually get built and start digging?
MR. HUFFMAN: In 1910. The first ditch was the one that came up through Stoney
Island.
MR. PERSONIUS: And they had to dig that over so that….
MR. HUFFMAN: They had to dig that so that they could get in. And that’s where the
first barge was where they loaded #8 or #9 coal and hauled out there with a team and
unloaded it onto this barge, as much as they could with the water levels. It was naturally
a low area with high grass. They didn’t have to worry about wind and water and waves
and so forth so it was easy. If you get down farther south, I’d say you’d have to be very
careful with a man’s weight so he didn’t step on the edge and tip it.
MR. PERSONIUS: How was that propelled?
MR HUFFMAN: Usually by pushing it with a 3 horsepower inboard motor. Later we
used a 6 horsepower.
MR. PERSONIUS: So this was a self propelled barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh no, this was different. You hooked onto a guide. You were
hooked on at the back so you could steer it and push that barge by the motorboat.
MR. PERSONIUS: I see, so it as like a tugboat pushing the barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: That’s right.
MR. PERSONIUS: What type of fuel did it use, gasoline, kerosene?
MR. HUFFMAN: It used gasoline. Later on we had an engine that you had to prime and
start up with a belt.
MR. PERSONIUS: So this was how you pushed the coal barge down to the dredge.
How long did you have to do that?
MR. HUFFMAN: They were hauling coal all of the time. There was one fellow who
was hired entirely to transport loads and unload the coal.
MR. PERSONIUS: When it got to the dredge, where did it go?
MR. HUFFMAN: Right onto the back where that bunker was, and onto the flat top.
You’d get as much of it on there as you could.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well then the loading or unloading of the coal didn’t stop the
operation of the dredging?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh no! The barge came up behind and they would move so many
feet ahead each time they dug another hole as part of the ditch.
MR. PERSONIUS: I suppose on the barge there was a crew? A fireman?
MR. HUFFMAN: Do you mean the dredge? There was the fireman and the cranesman.
He was the man who operated the dipper arm on the turntable. There was the engineer.
The fellow who was the fireman was also what you might call the oiler. He was is charge
of the maintenance of the various shafting; there was a 125 horsepower hoisting engine
and a 55 horsepower swing engine.
MR. PERSONIUS: There were two steam engines?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, there was two engines. There was also an electric generator for
steam. That was for the lights at night.
MR. PERSONIUS: I’ll be darned; you’d run at night too?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, we’d run at night. Amidships you might say, there were two
tin dishpans about 16 inches across. They inverted them and put some lights in there. I
don’t remember how many, but not too many because the generators couldn’t handle it.
After we once got that generator started in the evening well then as soon as it dark, well,
you’d have to have light. That dredge ran all night long and all day long until it froze it.
MR. PERSONIUS: It couldn’t operate in the winter at all?
MR. HUFFMAN: No it couldn’t operate in the winter. You couldn’t keep the ice cut
on the sides. They’d have to lay over. In order to save the hull, once a week or so, you’d
have to go out on the sides and saw a space out of there to get to fresh water. We’d use
rock salt too. We’d throw it in that space without stirring it up. It would take a week or
so for it to freeze up again. They figured we had to do that about once a week.
MR. PERSONIUS: You could live right on the barge right?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, they didn’t live out there all winter. The actual living quarters
was a barge with a cabin with a reading room, sleeping or bunk area, and the area at the
back was the kitchen. Up above that was where the cook and usually his wife stayed.
The biggest part of living quarters that was down partway into the hull was the kitchen
and dining room.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was this the same barge as the one with the machinery?
MR. HUFFMAN: No it was on a separate barge.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was there only one man who stayed out there all winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the crew didn’t stay all winter except when they were needed.
Nobody stayed out there all winter.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well how’d you get out there then?
MR. HUFFMAN: In the wintertime it would all be frozen, you’d have to actually walk
out there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So you say it started in 1910. How long did it take to get down to
Horicon?
MR. HUFFMAN: Let’s see…I think they finished up in 1914. Some of the lateral
ditches had been dug but not all. They had to go back up. The moved Lake Street bridge
off from its foundations and went through with the dredge. They dug the ditch and
then…
MR. PERSONIUS: So they had to deepen the river?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, they deepened the river down through Horicon. The dirt then
was all used to build up the banks around the Van Brundt Plant. Now, it’s John Deere,
all the way around. As they went farther down they got to where the Catholic Church is
now. There used to be a dam in there. That was cleaned all out to allow free following
water.
[During this conversation Mr. Personius and Mr. Huffman are looking through a book of
pictures that shows the barge, dredging barge and the living quarters barge]
MR. HUFFMAN: This is where they’d dig the ditch about 22 or 23 three feet wide.
MR. PERSONIUS: When were the laterals dug?
MR. HUFFMAN: I would say after 1914 up until 1916 I think. That would be a lot of
digging. Then Merle Brothers came up from Illinois and they operated it for one year.
We then lived in LaFont.
MR. PERSONIUS: So, you started in 1910 and then took the laterals over to Chester.
Then did it go right straight to Horicon?
MR. HUFFMAN: That the time when they widened it out and made the “y” in there.
They channelized the river. They cleaned it out, all the way down there to Horicon.
Then they came back and dug the laterals. There was Strupps’s ditch and the like those
were some of the first ones that were made.
MR. HUFFMAN: Those were made after they got all the way to Horicon. Then they
came back and started to dig those all out. A certain number of those were dug to the old
hunting club. There’s a dig in there. All of those were dug after they had got to Horicon
first. Once they got to Horicon, at the north end of the Van Brundt Plant there was
railroad yard. That’s where out coal came in at that time. The coal was all barged from
there all the way up to wherever the barge was.
MR. PERSONIUS: What were the farmers paying to have a ditch dug through their land?
MR. HUFFMAN: I have no idea. I mean I didn’t know anything.
MR. PERSONIUS: So those were paid for individually by the farmers?
MR. PERSONIUS: Yeah, a certain amount of them. Some of it was classed as marsh
area. I don’t know what the actual financial proposition was. I do know the farmers only
paid for the dredge dug in what was apparently high land. There were places in there
where they would go farther back away from the center of the marsh. You would really
have good soil that you were digging up then, instead of just muck and rock and stuff.
MR. PERSONIUS: Why did McWilliams want to dig the ditch?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was several fellows who were promoters. They were first
operating those big tractors and plows. They plowed hillsides. They didn’t attempt to
plow north of Stoney Island ditch. They all tried to sell the land for little truck gardening
plots.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did McWilliams own that land?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: So why did McWilliams dig the ditch? Where they hired by
somebody else?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, McWilliams and R. H. and J. did the dredging. Supposedly, the
expense was paid by these promoters. They were a bunch of Chicago guys who were
going to this area the garden spot of the world. The only thing I saw out there was onions
and potatoes. There were bumper crops of those out there on land like that. You used to
have to wait for the water to run down. After those ditches were dug, and the
embankments became walls to hold it back. There was a pumping station where you
could drain the water out. That was at the south end of the ditch that ran straight south
of Stoney Island. There was an 8-inch suction and 8 inch discharge pipe. That whole
area was…well, tile was put in there to make the thing drain out. There wasn’t overflow,
but there’d be seepage from the high land south. Naturally that would drain in and make
it so that it was high. There used to be barn on the south end of that island. Cattle was
out there too between the lower end of the island and the house. It was all steam heated.
It had plumbing too. It was later moved to another location. He was always talking
about getting people out there. He was later what you’d call the field man for the
company for the McWilliams Co. He always brought people out there to look at the
place. One time there was a family from Chicago, they had a summer quarters built there.
When you go north about half a mile from where the greenhouse was on the west side of
the ditch; they used the bank of the ditch for the foundations of a little house. It was
little more than a shanty. There was a family of four. I used to know their name. I used
to have an old radio transmitter. You know with dots and dashes. I used to talk to them.
After six o’clock at night, we had the last fifteen minutes of every hour until morning. He
was on a steamer that went up from Chicago up into Lake Superior and around to Detroit.
That’s as far as they could go. We used to talk on the radio. I couldn’t stay up all night,
but we’d talk between 10 and 11 pm.
MR. PERSONIUS: How deep was the ditch then?
MR. HUFFMAN: I think it was 8 feet deep. The level would change. In some places it
was 20 feet. [unintelligible].
There was a lot of clay on the bottom. Sometimes the sides would fall in and they’d have
to got back and get a dipper full and put some there to strengthen the sides.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did you ever run into gravel or rocks or sand?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, there was several places. It was then that we learned what a
sold piece of equipment we were running.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did they just dump the soil on either side as they moved along?
MR. HUFFMAN: They tried to make both sides level. The only place that wasn’t level
was close by Stoney Island. [unintelligible].
The one where the pump is now.
MR. PERSONIUS: What happened to the barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: I think they took them and stripped them and hauled everything
away. They sold the engines and equipment for parts.
[Large portion of tape is unintelligible. Voices sounds very muffled and distant, as if
under water. Typist cannot hear it well enough to transcribe.]
MR. PERSONIUS: Did the barge ever sink while it was in use?
MR. HUFFMAN: One time. I don’t know exactly right now where that happened. It
was down on one of the laterals. There was a lateral that went back towards where they
were making a channel. It was below the big dike. It tipped over and it was a job getting
it back up. When it leveled out it was sitting on the bottom. They sealed it in and put a
big pump in there to get it out of the water. At that time we had a big
flat…[unintelligible] that was to get water out of the hull.
[unintelligible]
South of the Lake Street and south of the dig is where they filled in and leveled off. It
runs all the way down to where the ice house was.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: What do you remember about ducks and geese being out here?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t really remember. The only think that I can tell us is there
were not very many geese. There were a few geese that hunters got.
MR. PERSONIUS: What about ducks?
[unintelligible] The hunters out there would use dummy ducks. They would take the
ducks without dressing them.
MR. PERSONIUS: What did the hunting clubs think about your digging and dredging?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, in the first place they tried to stop the dredge. They came out
to the ditch. They had their shotguns and all. We stopped just long enough to talk to
them for a few minutes.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: Where did that happen?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was right on the main ditch. They came out right from the old
clubhouse.
MR. PERSONIUS: That was called the Horicon Shooting Club. Did the Dianna Club
have a dam too?
MR. HUFFMAN: …what used to be a dam. They claimed that they had control of it.
But they had to proof of that.
MR. PERSONIUS: They had leases on that land didn’t they?
MR. HUFFMAN: I never saw one.
MR. PERSONIUS: Who owned the land that the ditch was dug through?
MR. HUFFMAN: As far as I knew, after the State a private group tried to but it at one
time, but there was legislation against it. This was long after the ditch was dug.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you ever remember digging up any bones, or logs or anything
unusual like that?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, not with the dredge. But on the east side of the
marsh…[unintelligible].
[Mr. Personius asks about a particular person, and if Mr. Huffman knows where he is. I
am unable to hear the name.]
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t know where he is. His wife died and he tried to come here.
But he went back and forth, he couldn’t make up his mind. He just don’t know where he
is. He tried to live in his home but he sold the farm and the house with the understanding
that he could live there as long as he was able. But they found him out where he had
fallen down in the wintertime. Luckily somebody found him before he froze to death and
saved his life. But he’s not here. He used to be a few doors down. The fellow that he
was with was quite a talker. I’ve been here now…
MR. PERSONIUS: How old is Perry Devis? Is he older than you?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, I was only a kid then. He was about 24 or 25 when we were
working on the barge. I was about 15 or 16.
MR. PERSONIUS: Is there anybody left who would know about that dredge besides
you and Harold Perry?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t think he’s alive anymore. He was the cranes man. I don’t
think he’s still alive. He’d been a real old man if he was. He was over at the South
County Hospital, it’s connected with this place. But it’s been a while. I haven’t seen
him for a long time. I just don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well, did we leave anything out?
MR. HUFFMAN: Not that I can think of.
MR. PERSONIUS: What buildings do you actually remember on Stoney Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was a house and a garage and barn. While we were out there
was six stalls for horses. That year that we lived there we built a rain shelter for those
cattle that we had. We had seventy-five or eighty head of cattle. They were shipped up
from Texas or someplace. We had to keep them in an enclosure during the night because
they’d get out in those muck holes along the ditch. A good many of them got stuck.
I had a pretty good riding and pulling horse. When I first rode him it was bare back.
Then the Peachy’s gave me a saddle. Then I had something to fasten a rope to. Then I
could lasso the cattle by the horns and help them out of those muck holes. Once you
help them a little bit, the horse got used to it and would back up a little bit and help. One
time while I was out there they were sort of wild and I never got off the horse when I was
out there alone.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where these longhorns?
MR. HUFFMAN: They were everything. They didn’t have horns that were too long.
They were mostly young steers. There was one old cow mixed in with them.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was the north end of Stoney Island pasture?
MR. HUFFMAN: No that never was. At one time a fire broke out while we lived there.
We left and came to town. We didn’t know what the conditions were and it might have
burned us out of there. So Dad said we’d go to town until morning. There was the ditch
there, but the wind was strong from the north. That whole area burnt all the way back to
the Erllybush Farm and clear over to the main ditch. Then it came down to the other
cross lateral ditch west of Stoney Island that came in from the north.
MR. PERSONIUS: So that fire burned everything north of the road?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. There was great big holes in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: You mean the peat burns. Well where was the holes?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh anywhere out there. Any place that would be dry enough, north
of the old marsh road.
MR. PERSONIUS: So that was in the fall and winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah they would start in the fall of the year. The fellows were out
there hunting, and,…we don’t know how it got started.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the peat would burn a winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. You’d look out there sometimes in the evening and there
would be a whole bunch of steam. They would burn down so deep and burn hole out to
water. Then the water would quench it.
MR. PERSONIUS: When was the old marsh road finished all the way across the marsh?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was actually finished in a process of filling in and getting gravel and
stuff on it. It was all the way from the time we lived out there until Route 49 opened up.
MR. PERSONIUS: So for a long time it only went up to the Stoney Island farm?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, no, they went across and then we actually drove over. They had
a team on the Stupps Farm.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where was the pasture for the cattle that you had?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh, that was just that 170 acres south of Stoney Island and east of
the other ditch.
MR. PERSONIUS: So you ran the cattle in there. But then didn’t they plant potatoes
and all that in there?
MR. HUFFMAN: That was during the year after we got the big pump out there on the
ditch. There was that one year when we had some kind of greens planted out there. But
the potatoes and onions had been planted before we were out there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the house was on the north side of the ditch?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the house was on the south side. The building on the north side
was just an old shack that was over there. It was the Reynolds boys who did all of the
tiling in there. They lived in that old shack over there. That was on the north side.
MR. PERSONIUS: And there was a little bridge that went over there?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. It wasn’t big enough for a truck or a tractor. Just a foot bridge.
MR. PERSONIUS: So on the south side, there was the farmhouse and the barn and silo.
There is a silo ring there now.
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, there was no silo there that we remember.
MR. PERSONIUS: It must have been built after you left there.
MR. HUFFMAN: Probably, I don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: What else do you remember about the fires? Were they frequent?
MR. HUFFMAN: On the east side of the marsh all of that area burned clear up to the
farm line. Where ever you’d go from the pump in the ditch all the way north. There
would be a fire every fall. We didn’t live there too long, but we heard about them. My
Dad and I worked up there. We worked that 170 acres and harvested a crop. I can’t
remember what it was.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did the marsh have trees on it?
MR. HUFFMAN: Very few; just those that grew out like seedlings in a barren area. The
marsh had a few. There are still some there. It was more sagebrush and stuff like that
that few out northeast of Stoney Island in that area. After the fire, very little of it grew.
MR. PERSONIUS: So it was mostly grass.
MR. HUFFMAN: It was marsh grass. It was that wide…
MR. PERSONIUS: Did anybody ever cut that for hay?
MR. HUFFMAN: They used to cut it for packing hay years ago.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was more from the old marsh road out through Peachy’s and as far
as they could go. After it froze up, they could cut all the way up to Stoney Island. Of
course when they first cut the marsh hay, they thought they could go anywhere on the
marsh. There was supposed to be areas that fellows owned for hay land. That was
places where they cut hay and brought it in to Chester. At one time Peachy’s had a lot; it
was about 12 or 14 bales high. That whole stack length and width almost filled that
whole upon yard south of the Peachy house. That was all packing hay that was hauled in
from the marsh. They sent it to Sterling’s I think in Oshkosh. They would ship it out
from Chester to the east; Philadelphia and New York.
MR. PERSONIUS: What about any other kinds of wildlife? Were there any prairie
chickens?
MR. HUFFMAN: Not in the early years. There may be more now. But that’s
probably migration more than anything else.
MR. PERSONIUS: What kind of wildlife do you remember from your time there?
MR. HUFFMAN: The only think I remember was the rats. There were hundreds and
thousands of muskrats. There were a lot of the muskrat houses for the winter. They
were all over; anywhere there was a little water and marsh.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember Ranks Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: It’s about six miles south of Stoney Island. It’s the next island
south. Do you remember an island being down there?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember a shack being on that island?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh, I don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember another hunting club that was on the west side of
the marsh?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t know. There might have been. Most of those fellows came
from the old clubhouse.
MR. PERSONIUS: There’s a foundation on Rank’s Island. The place was built in about
1888. There was some kind building there at one time, but you don’t remember it being
there?
MR. HUFFMAN: No. I don’t know as we got out in there except to go out in a small
boat so to see where the old river channel was before they cleaned it out and tied it in to
the main ditch where you go down beside of Burnett’s and all in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So as far as you know, there isn’t anybody else who is still alive?
Well, possible Perry Deviss, who would know anything about the dredge?
MR. HUFFMAN: Only him, and I don’t know if he’s still alive.
MR. PERSONIUS: Can you think of anything else about Horicon Marsh that you can
tell me?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh boy! We’ve talked about just about everything I can think of!
MR. PERSONIUS: Yeah. Well thank you very much Clyde!

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INTERVIEW WITH CLYDE HUFFMAN BORN 1900
BY ROBERT PERSONIUS
CONDUCTED JULY 11, 1974
COUNTY HOME IN JUNEAU, ALASKA
MR. HUFFMAN: My name is Clyde Huffman. I was born in 1900.
MR. PERSONIUS: You’re 74 years old. If you were born then, it’s easy to figure out
how old you are!
MR. HUFFMAN: That’s right! After the 4th of August.
MR. PERSONIUS: Are you going to live into the next century?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, I don’t think so! I have a good background of age limits though.
My father was 72 in April and he lived until September. My grandfather lived until the
day before his 94th birthday.
MR. PERSONIUS: You can’t beat that!
MR. HUFFMAN: I should say not!
MR. PERSONIUS: What I’d like to do today is to start…well, let’s start with where
you were born.
MR. HUFFMAN: I was born in Gilman, Illinois. That’s about 81 miles south of
Chicago.
MR. PERSONIUS: You lived there with father and mother?
MR. HUFFMAN: My folks lived there at the time that I was born. We later moved
away from there. We moved to Wisconsin in 1910. We realized, I don’t know how much
you know about it, but in those days everything was shipped by railroad cars. Our
furniture was loaded on and shipped up here. After it got here George Preachly and his
family lived across the railroad tracks on the east side. They helped Dad unload at
Chester from the sidetrack. That was the same place where we unloaded coal. It was the
first coal that was shipped up there.
MR. PERSONIUS: Chester is now what they call East LaFonte. There’s no siding there
now is there?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many buildings were there when you pulled in?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was a sort of a freight warehouse for large things across the
tracks on the east side. There was an incline approach because it was up at Tar Heights.
There was the depot that has passenger entries and also the office and telegraph and so
forth. On the south end was just the normal freight unloading and storage place.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many houses were there in Chester, or East La Fonte at that
time?
MR. HUFFMAN: There were four at that time.
MR. PERSONIUS: Were there any stores?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where was the depot in relation to the present road?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was just to the right or, the south. The siding was actually on the
east side of the present railroad tracks.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the depot and the warehouses were also on the east side?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the depot was on the west side. They were across from each
other.
MR. PERSONIUS: How many brothers and sisters did you have?
MR. HUFFMAN: Just one sister.
MR. PERSONIUS: So, the four of you; father, mother, sister and yourself moved in
1910 to where?
MR. HUFFMAN: To Chester, to the present house that’s right on the corner. It’s now
Maaco’s but it’s been remodeled. But that’s the same house. It be on the south side of
the road right where it turns to go across the tracks.
MR. PERSONIUS: How long did you live there?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t remember exactly, but it was about a year. Then we moved to
Burnett. We were right in the village. In the spring of 1913 we moved to a house in the
“y” between the St. Paul that came from Horicon and the Northwestern that was
crossing. We lived in that “y”, in a little farmhouse. Then we moved to Horicon. We
lived out at what they called Tanner’s Addition.
MR. PERSONIUS: When did you live on Stoney Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: All of 1917.
MR. PERSONIUS: That was after the ditch was all done.
MR. HUFFMAN: Yes, that part of it was done.
MR. PERSONIUS: How long did you live there?
MR. HUFFMAN: For about a year. That was my 11th and 12th grade. I graduated from
LaFonte High School.
MR. PERSONIUS: And you lived there all the rest of your life?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: I wanted to ask you about the construction of the main ditch. Can
you tell me about that?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, when my Dad got up here, and like I told you, he came here
ahead of us; my mother, sister and I. The dredge had dug about half a mile or so. It was
rather slow digging. I don’t know as you know about it, but the dredge’s hull was built in
a spring hole in the back of Denny Conner’s’ farm. The machinery was hauled out from
Oak Center and put on. While they were starting to float the hull, they were starting to
put the machinery on.
MR. PERSONIUS: And the machinery was delivered from Oak Center from the railroad?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: So they’d bring out there by horse and wagon from Oak Center?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. I don’t know about the actual hauling because that was too
early, but that’s what I knew about it. It was built out there at the back of Denny
Conner’s farm at the south end of the marsh. You went in back of Benson’s to the south
through Benson’s farmyard and lot to the spring hole. That spring was the beginning of
the ditch and the marsh. That’s the actual beginning. I don’t know what’s left of it there
now. They used horses and a scraper to make a hole. As the water filled up, it took quite
a while. My Dad said that he was there for a month or so before they got more than a
half a mile as far as the ditch was concerned. They dug the ditch and wait for it to fill in.
The whole marsh was full of springs so part of the water went in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: How big was the wooden barge that they put the dredge on?
MR. HUFFMAN: My recollection is that it was about 18 feet wide and 72 feet long
with the overhang. That overhang was the coalbunker at the back of the barge. I suppose
I don’t really remember but it was four feet or so. That would be about 68 feet long. It
was a wooden hull.
MR. PERSONIUS: What was your father’s job?
MR. HUFFMAN: He was sent there originally sent there to build this dredge. He had
worked in various places in Illinois and all over building dredges up until 1907 I guess,
when we moved. That was kind of a bad time. There wasn’t much dredging. In 1909 we
moved to my grandmother’s farm about 2 miles north of Bowie, Illinois. We lived there
for a year, and then moved back into town. That was my first schooling, at the old Bowie
school and then out to the farm.
MR. PERSONIUS: What was your Dad’s job working on the dredges?
MR. HUFFMAN: He was the engineer you might say, and in the maintenance area. He
was the boss you might say. He worked for R. H. and James Williams in Chicago. That
was the drainage contractor.
MR. PERSONIUS: When did the dredge actually get built and start digging?
MR. HUFFMAN: In 1910. The first ditch was the one that came up through Stoney
Island.
MR. PERSONIUS: And they had to dig that over so that….
MR. HUFFMAN: They had to dig that so that they could get in. And that’s where the
first barge was where they loaded #8 or #9 coal and hauled out there with a team and
unloaded it onto this barge, as much as they could with the water levels. It was naturally
a low area with high grass. They didn’t have to worry about wind and water and waves
and so forth so it was easy. If you get down farther south, I’d say you’d have to be very
careful with a man’s weight so he didn’t step on the edge and tip it.
MR. PERSONIUS: How was that propelled?
MR HUFFMAN: Usually by pushing it with a 3 horsepower inboard motor. Later we
used a 6 horsepower.
MR. PERSONIUS: So this was a self propelled barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh no, this was different. You hooked onto a guide. You were
hooked on at the back so you could steer it and push that barge by the motorboat.
MR. PERSONIUS: I see, so it as like a tugboat pushing the barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: That’s right.
MR. PERSONIUS: What type of fuel did it use, gasoline, kerosene?
MR. HUFFMAN: It used gasoline. Later on we had an engine that you had to prime and
start up with a belt.
MR. PERSONIUS: So this was how you pushed the coal barge down to the dredge.
How long did you have to do that?
MR. HUFFMAN: They were hauling coal all of the time. There was one fellow who
was hired entirely to transport loads and unload the coal.
MR. PERSONIUS: When it got to the dredge, where did it go?
MR. HUFFMAN: Right onto the back where that bunker was, and onto the flat top.
You’d get as much of it on there as you could.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well then the loading or unloading of the coal didn’t stop the
operation of the dredging?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh no! The barge came up behind and they would move so many
feet ahead each time they dug another hole as part of the ditch.
MR. PERSONIUS: I suppose on the barge there was a crew? A fireman?
MR. HUFFMAN: Do you mean the dredge? There was the fireman and the cranesman.
He was the man who operated the dipper arm on the turntable. There was the engineer.
The fellow who was the fireman was also what you might call the oiler. He was is charge
of the maintenance of the various shafting; there was a 125 horsepower hoisting engine
and a 55 horsepower swing engine.
MR. PERSONIUS: There were two steam engines?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, there was two engines. There was also an electric generator for
steam. That was for the lights at night.
MR. PERSONIUS: I’ll be darned; you’d run at night too?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, we’d run at night. Amidships you might say, there were two
tin dishpans about 16 inches across. They inverted them and put some lights in there. I
don’t remember how many, but not too many because the generators couldn’t handle it.
After we once got that generator started in the evening well then as soon as it dark, well,
you’d have to have light. That dredge ran all night long and all day long until it froze it.
MR. PERSONIUS: It couldn’t operate in the winter at all?
MR. HUFFMAN: No it couldn’t operate in the winter. You couldn’t keep the ice cut
on the sides. They’d have to lay over. In order to save the hull, once a week or so, you’d
have to go out on the sides and saw a space out of there to get to fresh water. We’d use
rock salt too. We’d throw it in that space without stirring it up. It would take a week or
so for it to freeze up again. They figured we had to do that about once a week.
MR. PERSONIUS: You could live right on the barge right?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, they didn’t live out there all winter. The actual living quarters
was a barge with a cabin with a reading room, sleeping or bunk area, and the area at the
back was the kitchen. Up above that was where the cook and usually his wife stayed.
The biggest part of living quarters that was down partway into the hull was the kitchen
and dining room.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was this the same barge as the one with the machinery?
MR. HUFFMAN: No it was on a separate barge.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was there only one man who stayed out there all winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the crew didn’t stay all winter except when they were needed.
Nobody stayed out there all winter.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well how’d you get out there then?
MR. HUFFMAN: In the wintertime it would all be frozen, you’d have to actually walk
out there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So you say it started in 1910. How long did it take to get down to
Horicon?
MR. HUFFMAN: Let’s see…I think they finished up in 1914. Some of the lateral
ditches had been dug but not all. They had to go back up. The moved Lake Street bridge
off from its foundations and went through with the dredge. They dug the ditch and
then…
MR. PERSONIUS: So they had to deepen the river?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, they deepened the river down through Horicon. The dirt then
was all used to build up the banks around the Van Brundt Plant. Now, it’s John Deere,
all the way around. As they went farther down they got to where the Catholic Church is
now. There used to be a dam in there. That was cleaned all out to allow free following
water.
[During this conversation Mr. Personius and Mr. Huffman are looking through a book of
pictures that shows the barge, dredging barge and the living quarters barge]
MR. HUFFMAN: This is where they’d dig the ditch about 22 or 23 three feet wide.
MR. PERSONIUS: When were the laterals dug?
MR. HUFFMAN: I would say after 1914 up until 1916 I think. That would be a lot of
digging. Then Merle Brothers came up from Illinois and they operated it for one year.
We then lived in LaFont.
MR. PERSONIUS: So, you started in 1910 and then took the laterals over to Chester.
Then did it go right straight to Horicon?
MR. HUFFMAN: That the time when they widened it out and made the “y” in there.
They channelized the river. They cleaned it out, all the way down there to Horicon.
Then they came back and dug the laterals. There was Strupps’s ditch and the like those
were some of the first ones that were made.
MR. HUFFMAN: Those were made after they got all the way to Horicon. Then they
came back and started to dig those all out. A certain number of those were dug to the old
hunting club. There’s a dig in there. All of those were dug after they had got to Horicon
first. Once they got to Horicon, at the north end of the Van Brundt Plant there was
railroad yard. That’s where out coal came in at that time. The coal was all barged from
there all the way up to wherever the barge was.
MR. PERSONIUS: What were the farmers paying to have a ditch dug through their land?
MR. HUFFMAN: I have no idea. I mean I didn’t know anything.
MR. PERSONIUS: So those were paid for individually by the farmers?
MR. PERSONIUS: Yeah, a certain amount of them. Some of it was classed as marsh
area. I don’t know what the actual financial proposition was. I do know the farmers only
paid for the dredge dug in what was apparently high land. There were places in there
where they would go farther back away from the center of the marsh. You would really
have good soil that you were digging up then, instead of just muck and rock and stuff.
MR. PERSONIUS: Why did McWilliams want to dig the ditch?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was several fellows who were promoters. They were first
operating those big tractors and plows. They plowed hillsides. They didn’t attempt to
plow north of Stoney Island ditch. They all tried to sell the land for little truck gardening
plots.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did McWilliams own that land?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: So why did McWilliams dig the ditch? Where they hired by
somebody else?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, McWilliams and R. H. and J. did the dredging. Supposedly, the
expense was paid by these promoters. They were a bunch of Chicago guys who were
going to this area the garden spot of the world. The only thing I saw out there was onions
and potatoes. There were bumper crops of those out there on land like that. You used to
have to wait for the water to run down. After those ditches were dug, and the
embankments became walls to hold it back. There was a pumping station where you
could drain the water out. That was at the south end of the ditch that ran straight south
of Stoney Island. There was an 8-inch suction and 8 inch discharge pipe. That whole
area was…well, tile was put in there to make the thing drain out. There wasn’t overflow,
but there’d be seepage from the high land south. Naturally that would drain in and make
it so that it was high. There used to be barn on the south end of that island. Cattle was
out there too between the lower end of the island and the house. It was all steam heated.
It had plumbing too. It was later moved to another location. He was always talking
about getting people out there. He was later what you’d call the field man for the
company for the McWilliams Co. He always brought people out there to look at the
place. One time there was a family from Chicago, they had a summer quarters built there.
When you go north about half a mile from where the greenhouse was on the west side of
the ditch; they used the bank of the ditch for the foundations of a little house. It was
little more than a shanty. There was a family of four. I used to know their name. I used
to have an old radio transmitter. You know with dots and dashes. I used to talk to them.
After six o’clock at night, we had the last fifteen minutes of every hour until morning. He
was on a steamer that went up from Chicago up into Lake Superior and around to Detroit.
That’s as far as they could go. We used to talk on the radio. I couldn’t stay up all night,
but we’d talk between 10 and 11 pm.
MR. PERSONIUS: How deep was the ditch then?
MR. HUFFMAN: I think it was 8 feet deep. The level would change. In some places it
was 20 feet. [unintelligible].
There was a lot of clay on the bottom. Sometimes the sides would fall in and they’d have
to got back and get a dipper full and put some there to strengthen the sides.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did you ever run into gravel or rocks or sand?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, there was several places. It was then that we learned what a
sold piece of equipment we were running.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did they just dump the soil on either side as they moved along?
MR. HUFFMAN: They tried to make both sides level. The only place that wasn’t level
was close by Stoney Island. [unintelligible].
The one where the pump is now.
MR. PERSONIUS: What happened to the barge?
MR. HUFFMAN: I think they took them and stripped them and hauled everything
away. They sold the engines and equipment for parts.
[Large portion of tape is unintelligible. Voices sounds very muffled and distant, as if
under water. Typist cannot hear it well enough to transcribe.]
MR. PERSONIUS: Did the barge ever sink while it was in use?
MR. HUFFMAN: One time. I don’t know exactly right now where that happened. It
was down on one of the laterals. There was a lateral that went back towards where they
were making a channel. It was below the big dike. It tipped over and it was a job getting
it back up. When it leveled out it was sitting on the bottom. They sealed it in and put a
big pump in there to get it out of the water. At that time we had a big
flat…[unintelligible] that was to get water out of the hull.
[unintelligible]
South of the Lake Street and south of the dig is where they filled in and leveled off. It
runs all the way down to where the ice house was.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: What do you remember about ducks and geese being out here?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t really remember. The only think that I can tell us is there
were not very many geese. There were a few geese that hunters got.
MR. PERSONIUS: What about ducks?
[unintelligible] The hunters out there would use dummy ducks. They would take the
ducks without dressing them.
MR. PERSONIUS: What did the hunting clubs think about your digging and dredging?
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, in the first place they tried to stop the dredge. They came out
to the ditch. They had their shotguns and all. We stopped just long enough to talk to
them for a few minutes.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: Where did that happen?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was right on the main ditch. They came out right from the old
clubhouse.
MR. PERSONIUS: That was called the Horicon Shooting Club. Did the Dianna Club
have a dam too?
MR. HUFFMAN: …what used to be a dam. They claimed that they had control of it.
But they had to proof of that.
MR. PERSONIUS: They had leases on that land didn’t they?
MR. HUFFMAN: I never saw one.
MR. PERSONIUS: Who owned the land that the ditch was dug through?
MR. HUFFMAN: As far as I knew, after the State a private group tried to but it at one
time, but there was legislation against it. This was long after the ditch was dug.
[unintelligible]
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you ever remember digging up any bones, or logs or anything
unusual like that?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, not with the dredge. But on the east side of the
marsh…[unintelligible].
[Mr. Personius asks about a particular person, and if Mr. Huffman knows where he is. I
am unable to hear the name.]
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t know where he is. His wife died and he tried to come here.
But he went back and forth, he couldn’t make up his mind. He just don’t know where he
is. He tried to live in his home but he sold the farm and the house with the understanding
that he could live there as long as he was able. But they found him out where he had
fallen down in the wintertime. Luckily somebody found him before he froze to death and
saved his life. But he’s not here. He used to be a few doors down. The fellow that he
was with was quite a talker. I’ve been here now…
MR. PERSONIUS: How old is Perry Devis? Is he older than you?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah, I was only a kid then. He was about 24 or 25 when we were
working on the barge. I was about 15 or 16.
MR. PERSONIUS: Is there anybody left who would know about that dredge besides
you and Harold Perry?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t think he’s alive anymore. He was the cranes man. I don’t
think he’s still alive. He’d been a real old man if he was. He was over at the South
County Hospital, it’s connected with this place. But it’s been a while. I haven’t seen
him for a long time. I just don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: Well, did we leave anything out?
MR. HUFFMAN: Not that I can think of.
MR. PERSONIUS: What buildings do you actually remember on Stoney Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: There was a house and a garage and barn. While we were out there
was six stalls for horses. That year that we lived there we built a rain shelter for those
cattle that we had. We had seventy-five or eighty head of cattle. They were shipped up
from Texas or someplace. We had to keep them in an enclosure during the night because
they’d get out in those muck holes along the ditch. A good many of them got stuck.
I had a pretty good riding and pulling horse. When I first rode him it was bare back.
Then the Peachy’s gave me a saddle. Then I had something to fasten a rope to. Then I
could lasso the cattle by the horns and help them out of those muck holes. Once you
help them a little bit, the horse got used to it and would back up a little bit and help. One
time while I was out there they were sort of wild and I never got off the horse when I was
out there alone.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where these longhorns?
MR. HUFFMAN: They were everything. They didn’t have horns that were too long.
They were mostly young steers. There was one old cow mixed in with them.
MR. PERSONIUS: Was the north end of Stoney Island pasture?
MR. HUFFMAN: No that never was. At one time a fire broke out while we lived there.
We left and came to town. We didn’t know what the conditions were and it might have
burned us out of there. So Dad said we’d go to town until morning. There was the ditch
there, but the wind was strong from the north. That whole area burnt all the way back to
the Erllybush Farm and clear over to the main ditch. Then it came down to the other
cross lateral ditch west of Stoney Island that came in from the north.
MR. PERSONIUS: So that fire burned everything north of the road?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. There was great big holes in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: You mean the peat burns. Well where was the holes?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh anywhere out there. Any place that would be dry enough, north
of the old marsh road.
MR. PERSONIUS: So that was in the fall and winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah they would start in the fall of the year. The fellows were out
there hunting, and,…we don’t know how it got started.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the peat would burn a winter?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. You’d look out there sometimes in the evening and there
would be a whole bunch of steam. They would burn down so deep and burn hole out to
water. Then the water would quench it.
MR. PERSONIUS: When was the old marsh road finished all the way across the marsh?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was actually finished in a process of filling in and getting gravel and
stuff on it. It was all the way from the time we lived out there until Route 49 opened up.
MR. PERSONIUS: So for a long time it only went up to the Stoney Island farm?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, no, they went across and then we actually drove over. They had
a team on the Stupps Farm.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where was the pasture for the cattle that you had?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh, that was just that 170 acres south of Stoney Island and east of
the other ditch.
MR. PERSONIUS: So you ran the cattle in there. But then didn’t they plant potatoes
and all that in there?
MR. HUFFMAN: That was during the year after we got the big pump out there on the
ditch. There was that one year when we had some kind of greens planted out there. But
the potatoes and onions had been planted before we were out there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So the house was on the north side of the ditch?
MR. HUFFMAN: No, the house was on the south side. The building on the north side
was just an old shack that was over there. It was the Reynolds boys who did all of the
tiling in there. They lived in that old shack over there. That was on the north side.
MR. PERSONIUS: And there was a little bridge that went over there?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah. It wasn’t big enough for a truck or a tractor. Just a foot bridge.
MR. PERSONIUS: So on the south side, there was the farmhouse and the barn and silo.
There is a silo ring there now.
MR. HUFFMAN: Well, there was no silo there that we remember.
MR. PERSONIUS: It must have been built after you left there.
MR. HUFFMAN: Probably, I don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: What else do you remember about the fires? Were they frequent?
MR. HUFFMAN: On the east side of the marsh all of that area burned clear up to the
farm line. Where ever you’d go from the pump in the ditch all the way north. There
would be a fire every fall. We didn’t live there too long, but we heard about them. My
Dad and I worked up there. We worked that 170 acres and harvested a crop. I can’t
remember what it was.
MR. PERSONIUS: Did the marsh have trees on it?
MR. HUFFMAN: Very few; just those that grew out like seedlings in a barren area. The
marsh had a few. There are still some there. It was more sagebrush and stuff like that
that few out northeast of Stoney Island in that area. After the fire, very little of it grew.
MR. PERSONIUS: So it was mostly grass.
MR. HUFFMAN: It was marsh grass. It was that wide…
MR. PERSONIUS: Did anybody ever cut that for hay?
MR. HUFFMAN: They used to cut it for packing hay years ago.
MR. PERSONIUS: Where?
MR. HUFFMAN: It was more from the old marsh road out through Peachy’s and as far
as they could go. After it froze up, they could cut all the way up to Stoney Island. Of
course when they first cut the marsh hay, they thought they could go anywhere on the
marsh. There was supposed to be areas that fellows owned for hay land. That was
places where they cut hay and brought it in to Chester. At one time Peachy’s had a lot; it
was about 12 or 14 bales high. That whole stack length and width almost filled that
whole upon yard south of the Peachy house. That was all packing hay that was hauled in
from the marsh. They sent it to Sterling’s I think in Oshkosh. They would ship it out
from Chester to the east; Philadelphia and New York.
MR. PERSONIUS: What about any other kinds of wildlife? Were there any prairie
chickens?
MR. HUFFMAN: Not in the early years. There may be more now. But that’s
probably migration more than anything else.
MR. PERSONIUS: What kind of wildlife do you remember from your time there?
MR. HUFFMAN: The only think I remember was the rats. There were hundreds and
thousands of muskrats. There were a lot of the muskrat houses for the winter. They
were all over; anywhere there was a little water and marsh.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember Ranks Island?
MR. HUFFMAN: No.
MR. PERSONIUS: It’s about six miles south of Stoney Island. It’s the next island
south. Do you remember an island being down there?
MR. HUFFMAN: Yeah.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember a shack being on that island?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh, I don’t know.
MR. PERSONIUS: Do you remember another hunting club that was on the west side of
the marsh?
MR. HUFFMAN: I don’t know. There might have been. Most of those fellows came
from the old clubhouse.
MR. PERSONIUS: There’s a foundation on Rank’s Island. The place was built in about
1888. There was some kind building there at one time, but you don’t remember it being
there?
MR. HUFFMAN: No. I don’t know as we got out in there except to go out in a small
boat so to see where the old river channel was before they cleaned it out and tied it in to
the main ditch where you go down beside of Burnett’s and all in there.
MR. PERSONIUS: So as far as you know, there isn’t anybody else who is still alive?
Well, possible Perry Deviss, who would know anything about the dredge?
MR. HUFFMAN: Only him, and I don’t know if he’s still alive.
MR. PERSONIUS: Can you think of anything else about Horicon Marsh that you can
tell me?
MR. HUFFMAN: Oh boy! We’ve talked about just about everything I can think of!
MR. PERSONIUS: Yeah. Well thank you very much Clyde!